A Documentary Film
Written, Produced & Directed
by Laurie Kahn
available now at iTunes
Movies | Amazon
Love stories are universal. Love stories are powerful. And so are the women who write them.
LOVE
BETWEEN THE COVERS is the fascinating story of the vast, funny, and savvy
female community that has built a powerhouse industry sharing love
stories. Romance fiction is sold in 34
languages on six continents, and the genre grosses more than a billion dollars
a year—outselling mystery, sci-fi, and fantasy combined. Yet the millions of
voracious women (and sometimes men) who read, write, and love romance novels
have remained oddly invisible. Until now.
For three
years, we follow the lives of five very diverse published romance authors and
one unpublished newbie as they build their businesses, find and lose loved
ones, cope with a tsunami of change in publishing, and earn a living doing what
they love—while empowering others to do the same. Romance authors have built a
fandom unlike all others; a global sisterhood where authors know their readers
personally and help them become writers themselves. During the three years
we’ve been shooting LOVE BETWEEN THE COVERS, we have witnessed the biggest
power shift that has taken place in the publishing industry over the last 200
years. And it’s the romance authors who are on the front lines, pioneering new
ways to survive and build communities in this rapidly changing environment.
Distributed by The Orchard
Bonus Clip from LOVE BETWEEN THE COVERS
Author Jayne Anne Krentz
talking about her first encounter
with romance—something
we all remember.
10 Surprising Facts about Romance Novels by
Laurie Kahn
Four years ago, when I began making my
documentary film Love Between the Covers, I stepped into a community I knew
nothing about: the global network of women who write, read, and love romance
novels. What I found surprised me. Here are ten things I learned:
1. Romance fiction is a billion-dollar industry
Romance novel sales total more than a billion dollars a year. They sell as much
as sci-fi, mystery, and fantasy combined.
2. The romance readership is HUGE and global
More than 70 million people in the USA alone read at least one romance novel
per year, and most of them read many more. The work of popular American romance
writer Nora Roberts is translated into 33 languages and distributed on 6
continents.
3. There is a surprisingly wide range of romance
novels
Like romance blogger Sarah Wendell says, "Whatever your cup of tea
is, someone's pouring it."
Romance novels are often equated with
"bodice-rippers," but the steamy historicals with Fabio on the cover
were published back in the 1970s and 1980s. Since that time, the spectrum of
romance novels has exploded. On one end of that spectrum, there are chaste
evangelical romances. On the other end, there are BDSM romances (yes, like that one).
In between, you'll find paranormal romance with
vampires and shapeshifters, time-travel romance, historical romance,
contemporary romance, and romantic suspense. There are growing romance
subgenres for LGBT love stories, a large community of writers who specialize in
African-American romance, and there's even a popular Amish romance subgenre.
4. Everybody's writing romance
Women of every description (and a small number of men) are the engine of this
industry.
Contrary to expectations, romance authors come
from every economic class, every racial group, every sexual preference, and
every level of education.
When I asked the pioneering African-American
romance author Beverly
Jenkins about her peers, she told me, "Women from all walks of life do
this. We're not sitting in the proverbial trailer park in ratty nightgowns,
eating jelly beans and watching soap operas. There are some pretty powerful
women doing this! Geneticists, astrophysicists, lawyers, doctors..." The
list goes on.
Len Barot (pen name Radclyffe), one of the main
characters in Love Between the Covers, began writing lesbian romances
during her surgical residency. Mary Bly (pen name Eloisa James), another main
character in the film, is a Shakespeare scholar by day and an author of
historical romances by night.
I interviewed PhDs, lawyers, and insurance
executives. I also interviewed romance authors who worked in factories. There's
an open door for anyone who wants to give it a try. Nora Roberts, the rock star
of the romance industry, never went to college.
5. Women in the romance community are more
likely than the general population to be currently married or living with a
partner.
We've all seen depictions of the lonely, lovesick romance writer, who pens
titillating novels while eating bonbons and sobbing over her keyboard.
Don't believe the stereotype. While romance does
offer women a place to escape daily life and live out their fantasies, this
community of readers and writers are statistically more likely than most to be
in happy relationships.
6. Romance authors become personal friends with
their readers, and readers find one another.
In the romance community friendships that begin online - based on a shared love
of books-- often become real and enduring friendships.
Beverly Jenkins and her readers are in constant
contact at Beverly's Facebook page, talking about books, football, music, and
the ups and downs of their everyday lives. Every other year, Beverly takes a trip
with her readers to places where her novels are set.
Radclyffe invites beginning authors to her farm
in upstate New York, where she leads workshops on romance writing, and several
of Eloisa James's loyal readers told us they found their closest friends, with
whom they communicate every day, through Eloisa's blog.
7. Romance writers get tremendous support from
one another
Why are these women so happy to pull a less experienced writer up the ranks? I asked many authors this question, and almost all of them told me stories of their early romance mentors--and their desire to pay it forward.
Why are these women so happy to pull a less experienced writer up the ranks? I asked many authors this question, and almost all of them told me stories of their early romance mentors--and their desire to pay it forward.
At a Romance Writers of America (RWA) national conference,
unpublished writers are always welcome (something that does not happen at other
writer conferences), and there are dozens of workshops taught by established
writers about everything from plot structure and writing knife-fights, to
social networking and negotiating contracts. You will see bestselling novelists
sitting down for coffee with unpublished newbies, critiquing their work and
giving them business advice.
8. Romance authors are on the cutting edge,
pioneering new technologies
Romance writers and readers were the first to enthusiastically adopt e-books, a
service which works well for anyone who buys hundreds of books, and romance
writers have always been mavericks of social media, using it effectively to
build fan communities.
Romance has been at the forefront of the biggest
change to take place in publishing in the last 200 years: self publishing.
Together, romance authors have figured out how to succeed in self-publishing.
Instead of being secretive, these one-person indie publishing houses share
their knowhow and numbers (not a common practice in publishing).
9. You can take courses about romance fiction at
Princeton, Harvard, DePaul and dozens of other universities
Literature scholars, cultural historians, and popular culture studies professors founded the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance five years ago. They hold annual conferences, and they've also started the peer-reviewed onlineJournal for Popular Culture Studies. It's a growing interdisciplinary field.
Literature scholars, cultural historians, and popular culture studies professors founded the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance five years ago. They hold annual conferences, and they've also started the peer-reviewed onlineJournal for Popular Culture Studies. It's a growing interdisciplinary field.
10. Romance writing isn't an easy gig
You might think writing romance novels is more of a breezy pastime than a professional venture, but the deadlines that romance novelists face are incredibly rigorous. Susan Donovan described the feeling of being on-deadline saying, "There's always a flame behind your ass." Some women publish three or four books a year. On top of this, most novelists handle their own promotion, and self-published authors also handle their novels' distribution. When you're a romance novelist, you are a one-woman business.
You might think writing romance novels is more of a breezy pastime than a professional venture, but the deadlines that romance novelists face are incredibly rigorous. Susan Donovan described the feeling of being on-deadline saying, "There's always a flame behind your ass." Some women publish three or four books a year. On top of this, most novelists handle their own promotion, and self-published authors also handle their novels' distribution. When you're a romance novelist, you are a one-woman business.
I had a blast exploring the romance community
over the last four years. In creating Love Between the
Covers, I discovered one of the few places where women are always center
stage, where female characters always win, where justice prevails in every
book, and where the broad spectrum of desires of women from all backgrounds are
not feared, but explored unapologetically.
*Originally featured in The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/laurie-kahn/romance-novels_b_7109458.html
About Laurie Kahn:
Director/Producer - LAURIE KAHN’s films have won major awards, been shown on PBS primetime, broadcast around the world, and used widely in university classrooms, and community groups. Her first film, A Midwife’s Tale, was based on the 18th century diary of midwife Martha Ballard and Laurel Ulrich’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book A MIDWIFE’S TALE. It won film festival awards and a national Emmy for Outstanding Non-Fiction. Her film, Tupperware! was broadcast in more than 20 countries, won the George Foster Peabody Award and was nominated for a national Best Nonfiction Director Emmy. Kahn previously worked on Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, The American Experience, FRONTLINE’S Crisis in Central America, All Things Considered, and Time Out. She’s a resident scholar at Brandeis’s Women’s Studies Research Center.
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